AuthorTopic: Zendrum demo in Chicagoland area? (Read 7978 times)

Hello everyone,I am an aspiring drummer and am considering purchasing a Zendrum. What I was wondering is, does anyone on this message board live in the Chicago area, and would you be willing to demo the controller for me? I would like to get a feel for the instrument before I plunk down a couple of thousand dollars for it.

Please email me at chaosmonk [at] hotmail dot com if you are available to show off your toy.

Thanks for the quick responses! I'm closer to Downer's Grove than I am to southwest or central IL. I'm in a northwest suburb of Chicago, but I have no problem heading to Downer's Grove or further south as the case may be, depending on what's convenient.

I don't have a ton of experience playing the drums yet, so don't expect me to be able to pick it up and bust out all the rudiments and create masterful patterns with it, haha. I think this is where I'd like my percussion experience to go though so I think this instrument will be a good fit for me. I'm just not in the habit of buying really expensive things that I can't see or touch before buying, so I really appreciate the willingness to help out here.

Hey Peabody,I sent you a PM but not sure if it ever came through.I'm expecting my ZX to come next week. Jaay was really helpful and invited me to his home to give his a whirl, but I'm definitely up to getting as many opinions as possible of how to play it, so if you haven't come through this area yet, I'd really like to meet you and see the Draken.

Timing didn't work out for a side visit, sorry. Not to despair though, I haven't moved out of state - yet!

If you're ever in Central ll (Bloomington/Normal), let me know.

Regarding your new Zendrum - be patient. Let your natural rhythm and ergonomics determine what position / setup is best for you. I wear mine like a guitar, where as other wear theirs almost upright.

Give yourself 30 days of DAILY practice playing along to many different musical styles. Openly experiment with different pad set-ups; who says you can't have 6 snares? You will find an overall set-up that works for you.

My 'walla' moment happened around day 12 when I realized my brain was wired Right hand 1/3 count, Left hand 2/4 count. From there everything fell into place as far as my set-up.

Peabody is right, I have 4 pads assigned as snares, I have 4 pads assigned as HH, I have 2 ride pads, and 9 tom pads. I have other sounds assigned to the other pads on my ZX, but like peabody said, there is no wrong way to do it. I found my layout by tapping my fingers and palms on a table top. What I found is that I use my thumb on my right hand to go back and forth from kick to snare, and my right ring finger does the 8th notes on my HH. With that I can do a one handed groove. I use my left hand for what I call "ear candy". I can add kick patterns and 16ths on the HH or tripletts on the snare.

Like Peabody said, find your natural rhythm and ergonomics to determine what position and setup is best for you. Everyone I have come across plays their Zendrum totally different. It is not a drum kit and there is no standard way of doing it, futureman plays his ZX upside down, that is just how he plays, and it works for him.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'm excited to get started with my ZX. Rob, your one-handed groove was nowhere near as difficult as I thought it might be, I just tried it out on my desk here at work and it sort of came naturally. That's a good start for me.

It's looking like we might have a decent number of people in the Illinois region. I count 5 so far including myself. Might be worth setting up a meet-up sometime around central IL so we all share the drive?

Sounds good to me, Springfield is only about 2 hours for me, so we can pick a day (maybe a Saturday, I can driveup 2 to 3 hours and stay the day and drive back home later that night. I am meeting with 2 other Zendrummers in St. Louis in March, that should be a great time. I will send you an IM and give you my number so you can call me anytime you have some questions. I am getting with another Zendrummer via phone on Sunday to setup a percussion kit on the ZX using SD2.

Jaay, I think I might have lost your number in the shuffle, so feel free to drop me a new call or text and let me know when you're free. I think I'm getting things decently well figured out... I got myself an Alesis D4 to use as a plug-and-play learning system, but it was also really easy to hook into Battery 3 on my laptop. Now comes the process of working out where I want the pads to be...